In The Arms Of The Sheikh. Sophie Weston

painful if Ian had taken her out to dinner and told her face-to-face. They could have discussed it, mutually agreed that something was off, given each other a mature and slightly sad kiss goodbye and gotten on with their lives. This was different. This was bullshit. This was her only vacation for the year and Ian had ruined it summarily, without cause or concern. Hunter was right. Ian was a dick. Sad to think she’d devoted a year to a dick, and not even the good kind.

      Which suddenly made her aware of how long it had been since she’d had sex. And how close she was to Hunter’s penis. Her thoughts went full circle.

      She decided to sit up.

      Hunter gave her a look of surprise. “You okay?”

      “I have to go to the restroom.” It was a lie. She just needed to evacuate his lap before her thoughts took a turn into the gutter. It was as if her body had been all primed for booty on this vacation, and her hormones weren’t about to back down now that plans had changed. Even though Hunter couldn’t read her mind, she felt self-conscious.

      “That’s right, you had to go before we boarded.” Hunter unclicked his seat belt and stood up in the aisle so she could scoot past him.

      “Thanks.” She eased out of the seat and started down the aisle. Locking herself in the microscopic restroom, she glanced in the mirror and almost passed out. Good gravy, she looked like hell in a handbasket. Her face was swollen and splotchy and her hair was a disaster from running her hands through it nervously. There was no way Hunter was going to be attracted to her now that she’d taken a ride on the Hot Mess Express.

      After splashing water on her face, she tried to pat her hair down, but it was hopeless. She hadn’t brought her purse with her, so there was no real way to repair the damage. Not that lip gloss was going to change the fact that her eyes were swollen and her nose was stuffy. She rolled her neck and shoulders and tried to swallow the reality that she was winging her way to Mexico with a man who was a total stranger. There was no turning back, no getting out of it.

      She would literally be paying for this vacation for the next six months at least, so she could either lock herself in her hotel room and cry, or she could reset her idea of what the trip was going to be and try to enjoy it. She was still leaving winter behind. She didn’t have to work. There would be dessert buffets and salsa dancing. And while Hunter wasn’t going to be kissing her naked body, he was far better company than, say, her mother. Or a crying baby. Or a baboon. All of those would be worse options for travel companions.

      A sexy stranger should not be a hardship.

      Opening the restroom door with the violent shove it required, she went back down the aisle carefully, determined to make the best of things and to try to get to know Hunter a little better. The poor man was saddled with an awkward work assignment, aka her, so the least she could do was try to make the whole thing less awful for both of them.

      He began to stand as she approached so she could reach her window seat, but she waved him back down. “I can squeeze past. Don’t worry about it.” She felt guilty enough about falling apart on him.

      But right as she started to maneuver her way by, they hit a pocket of turbulence and the plane jumped. Knocked off balance, Melanie gave a small cry of alarm and tried to grab the seat in front of her. Too late. She fell against Hunter with all the grace of a hippo doing ballet. She didn’t land in his lap. That would have been better. No, instead she basically shoved her butt right on up against his chest.

      Scrambling and stumbling, she pulled her body away from him and tried to throw herself at her seat. Hunter put his hands on her hips.

      “Steady,” he said.

      Right. Steady. That was her. Hair in her eyes, she shifted to the right. But he had shifted as well, and somehow she managed to knock her hip into his arm. “Sorry,” she said, breathless. She turned to face him and blew her hair off her face. “These seats are really narrow.”

      He looked more amused than irritated. “I could have just stood up.”

      “I didn’t want to inconvenience you,” she said, bracing herself as the plane lurched again. She stood between his legs, his hands still on her waist. “Shall we dance?” she joked.

      “The only kind of dance I know that starts out like this is a lap dance,” he said wryly.

      Oh, jeez. Her cheeks burned. She did not want him to think she was flirting. “I was thinking more along the lines of the rumba. Clearly we spend our weekends in different ways.”

      Hunter laughed.

      It was the first time he had, and it was a deep, rumbling, pleasant sound.

      Melanie smiled at him. For the first time since Ian had told her he wasn’t getting on that flight with her, she didn’t feel as though she was on the verge of losing it.

      “Lap rumba?” he asked. “It’s all about compromise.”

      “Because I’m so graceful.” She made another move toward her seat and, as if to prove her point, managed to bump his arm on the way by.

      He winced.

      “Oh! Sorry.” Now she was causing him pain. “Are you okay? Did my butt pop your arm out of the socket or something? I’ve always been something of a klutz.”

      Back in her seat at last, she turned to see him shaking his head.

      “It’s just an old injury. Don’t worry about it.”

      “Really? How did you hurt yourself?”

      “I fell out of a Humvee after we hit a mine and broke my arm in four places.”

      She wasn’t exactly well versed in vehicles but she was pretty sure that was what they drove in the military. “Wow, that sounds painful. So you were in the service? How long have you been out?”

      “Three months.”

      That was way more recent than she would have expected. “Oh! So you had a long career, then. What made you decide to leave—your injury?”

      He gave her a look she couldn’t decipher. “Are you calling me old?”

      She rolled her eyes. “No. But you’re clearly not twenty-two, either. I just meant it wasn’t as if you did a few years and got out. It was a commitment.”

      “It was. Twelve years. I would still be serving if it wasn’t for my injury. I realized it was time to pack it in. I just turned thirty.”

      There was the rub. Not her comment, but his own fear of aging. Of starting a new life and career and feeling superfluous. “Thirty is the new twenty.”

      “Now you’re calling me immature.”

      But the corner of his mouth turned up.

      “I’m trying to get to know you,” she said, nudging his knee with hers. “Stop being difficult about it.”

      “Why the hell would you want to get to know me? I’m your bodyguard.”

      “You’re my only company for the next seven days.” The look he gave her was so pained she laughed. “Thanks for being so thrilled.” Then a thought occurred to her. “Wait, you are staying the whole time, aren’t you?”

      The thought of him leaving after just a couple of days upset her, and she wasn’t entirely sure why.

      “Yes, I’m staying. But I thought you said you weren’t afraid of Ian’s stalker.”

      “I’m not. I’m afraid of being...bored.” Alone. She was afraid to be alone.

      That was an unnerving thought to have. Was that why she’d been willing to settle for the half-assed attention of Ian Bainbridge? Because having a boyfriend, even one who was never around, was better than not having one at all? God, she wasn’t in middle school anymore.

      She wasn’t that needy. She knew she wasn’t. But she was a woman who thought that she could organize everything